[seydor]

It's on target regarding the current events, but he doesnt seem to heed his own message: deglobalization and the return to national (or something new?) identities is bad news for america which is a global empire. It's also good news for cohesive, homogeneous states. We seem to have entered at the end of the current globalizing cycle quite fast with russia's invasion, and other wars will follow.

[DennisP]

The benefits the US gets from globalization come at significant cost: huge military expenditures plus a hollowing out of manufacturing and other local jobs, leading to a lot of social unrest. Globalization wasn't something the US did for its own sake, but as a way of bribing the world to help them contain the Soviets.

Nevertheless, the US will find the end of globalization somewhat unpleasant for a while. But unlike most of the world, the US is self-sufficient in food and energy, faces little direct military threat, and its largest trading partners are on its borders. In relative terms, the US stands to come out well ahead.

Being less homogenous is also an advantage. Almost every advanced country has terrible demographics. The less homogenous you are, the more you're able to attract immigrants to fix that. Despite periodic discontent, the US has long welcomed immigration and benefited by it. On top of that, US demographics aren't that terrible in the first place.

[seydor]

> to help them contain the Soviets.

Why would they want to contain the soviets if not to benefit from global trade? The benefits outweigh the costs very much, thats why they did it.

Surely the US stands to come out safe, it is a very safe country, but if it won't be richer anymore, it will also stop being an immigration hotspot. Immigration, globalization and empire building go hand in hand, and the past century was America's turn. But this construction seems to be dissolving.

[DennisP]

I think you're drastically underestimating how much the US feared an expansionist USSR during the Cold War, and the worries just after WWII that the Soviets might just roll across Europe.

If things play out as Zeihan expects, the US will be a bit less rich, but will be far better off than anyone else in the world.